


Season of the Witch

by AuthorMontresor



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Original Character(s), Relationship(s), Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 15:36:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20392057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuthorMontresor/pseuds/AuthorMontresor
Summary: Princess Alba Malcastria of Menenia has summoned Cordelia, last of the Witches, to protect her kingdom from invasion. Their relationship is... rocky. Now that winter has put a stop on war operations, though, Cordelia and Alba might find to have more in common that they think...Also, Cordelia might have a few questions about a certain thing Alba did, a few weeks before. Maybe it was just a human quirk for Alba to push her lips against Cordelia's own? Or is it something else? Likely the princess has some answers..._____________________________________________One-shot (for now). If more chapters added, rating likely subjected to change.





	Season of the Witch

Alba Malcastria had long-since known being a princess did not protect you from cold. Especially not from the damp, piercing cold of Alpine winters, its frigid nails itching and scratching at her skin, even covered as she was in wool, cotton and fur.

Behind her, the Bondwitch did not seem to be as bothered. Go figure. She strode on the snow-covered fields with the same carelessness she might have displayed walking through golden wheat.

At least Alba had managed to make her wear _something_. It would not do for the Bondwitch to walk about the way she usually did in Alba’s private quarters. Alba could get used to her cumbersome guardian strolling naked in the hallways, but her people would likely be more reserved. A black satin dress hid most of the Bondwitch’s alabaster skin, and the rest was shrouded by her black brush of hair, a curtain of ink. Those impossibly-green eyes turned, looking at her. Alba froze, transfixed, and the clouds of breath exuding from her mouth stopped.

“You are staring,” the Bondwitcj commented. Her voice echoed on the plain like the toll of brazen bells. Alba blinked, took back control.

“I merely wanted to make sure you were following,” she replied.

“And where should I go?” The Bondwitch smirked. One graceful arm pointed at the empty valley stretching before them. “The enemy is vanquished. I am out of a job until spring, and after that I would like to go back to sleep.” She tilted her head, and her black hair flowed on to its side. “Unless you have other uses for me?”

Alba turned and picked up speed, her steps carving deep footprints in the pristine snow, unmarred save for the distant line of steps of a few other people, looking for wood. Her ears burned. He cheeks felt as if she had just opened the door of a furnace. How come the snow was not melting right in front of her? _Other uses_… no, no. She would not allow her own… delusions to get the better of her.

Especially what had recently happened at the winter ball. No matter.

Most likely the Bondwitch had already forgotten about Alba’s little… _faux pas_ that night. Such gestures, to a mind as ancient and at the same time as naïve as that of the Bondwitch, would and could amount to nothing… she was positive.

Alba stopped to catch her breath (why was it so labored? It had only been a short walk from the Castle), standing at a cliff’s edge, and poured her gaze down into the valley below. It was frozen, still, motionless as the corpses of the invading soldiers. Some of them still stuck out from the snow. Alba scratched her chin, taking her mind away for a moment from her more inappropriate thoughts. Some of those corpses still held onto their rifles. Maybe they could still be salvaged, at least part of them… she had to consider every angle, look for every advantage, consider every chance she had to get an edge. The contract with the Bondwitch herself was only part of her gamble…

Alba only noticed the Bondwitch because she had walked up to her. The Bondwitch had left no footprints. No cloud of breath to coil around her neck. Alba’s eyes lingered there for a moment. On her alabaster skin, unnaturally smooth, on the sinful curve of her neck… Alba crossed her arms on her chest. She had to reel in her most basics of desires, the voice of the Devil himself whispering into her ears… and yet. And yet, had she not made a pact with a she-devil of some sort?

Alba’s eyes moved to her dead right hand. The withered, blackened skin. How it hung limp.

“What are your thoughts?” The Bondwitch asked. Alba saw those green eyes even without looking for them. They had been so close that night, after the ball… was the Bondwitch still talking? Could Alba even hear her over the thunder and rumble of her treacherous heart? She steeled herself. She had an image to uphold.

“I was wondering on how to best protect my Kingdom. It is mid-winter already. We better get ready for the next assault in spring.” Alba chuckled. “I used to look down from here, standing next to Father. I loved the panorama.” A pause. “Now all I can see is resources and choke points.”

Alba breathed out of her nose. The white cloud lingered in the air, stretching like the silence between them.

“If you will not share your thoughts, then you shall allow me to express mine,” the Bondwitch said.

Alba shrugged. She could forbid her, but enforcing the contract would spend more energies and time she did not have. And often the Bondwitch gave voice to many inane and most vulgar thoughts, her words wandering aimlessly like a heron that has lost its way home. She would probably only ask for more books, or cookies, or-

“I was wondering about that mouth-thing you did after the ball.”

Alba turned into an ice sculpture. She would have preferred God had given her a slight push and made her tumble down into the valley, frozen corpse amidst frozen corpses. But God would not have such mercy upon her sinful, sinful soul.

The Bondwitch lifted a finger, brushed it against her rosy lips, pale, almost platinum in the light of morning. Alba remembered them golden in the candleglow, soft and oh-so-warm.

“Is that a thing you do? Some sort of agreement?” She asked, puzzled. “You did look more agreeable than usual in that moment. Oh! Are you well? You are doing it again. Your face is turning crimson.”

Alba covered as much of her face as could with the hem of her fur.

She could probably order her not to pester with questions. Though, knowing the Bondwitch, she would find a way to get her answers, one way or another.

“I was just about to ask you Chancellor about it, in fact.”

“You will not do such a thing!” Alba pointed a finger at her. If Andronicus ever heard even just a whiff about what happened…

“Why not? I am only trying to get used to this time of yours.”

And once again it fell upon Alba’s own shoulders. Whose idea had it been to summon the Bondwitch after all? Surely she had been justified. A weapon to deploy only in the direst of straits. Alba’s own ruined hand was proof enough. And yet…

“It was a thank-you!” Alba exclaimed. Truly, if she reddened but a little more, she could probably melt the whole valley. Then war would resume, and she could she be spared these… these… explanations.

“A thank-you?” The Bondwitch tilted her head. Those huge emerald eyes wide in curious concern. “What for? You paid your price already. There is no need for further transactions. Unless you wish for…” her voice trailed off.

Alba’s own mind was wandering. She barely managed to reel it in.

“For… for what you did at the ball. That was the reason.”

The Bondwitch tilted her head once more. Her white lips seemed to burn.

“For the escape? For the duel? Oh! For having kept my dress on?”

“No! For…” Alba looked down again at the valley. She did not see it, though. She saw black hair, and emerald eyes, and platinum-white lips. “For saving my life.”

“Ah, that one.”

Alba turned and almost gasped. Since when the Bondwitch had been this close? She seemed to loom over Alba, and not just because she was one good taller. Was she leaning forward? Alba tilted her head up, driven or beckoned by some nether desire she could not name nor wrestle. Maybe she did not even care. Maybe she-

“_Servus_, your Majesty!”

Alba withdrew with a soft gasp, and it was only because she was ankle-deep in snow that she did not get her previous wish granted and stumbled down into the ravine.

A farmer. Crouching under the weight of the wooden faggot he carried, he still managed to bow and wave and smile, though his eyes would not touch the Bondwitch.

“A blessed day to you as well!” Alba replied, as mechanical as a spring toy. In truth, she ought not to be angry at him. Every bit of support she gathered was an easier campaign in spring.

And yet she hated him. The farmer bowed and walked away, stumbling under his pendulous load. He would probably keep his family warm out of his own sweat. She had no right to hate him.

The Bondwitch was looking away. The moment, whatever it might have brought, was gone.

The wind picked up. The sky, overcast already, was whitening, like the bleached bones of the poor soldiers in the valley. Nothing else to do here for her, save waiting for a new bout of snow.

“Come,” she called, and turned, and strode back towards the Castle. She and the Bondwitch did not exchange words. Better this way.

Alba nursed her ruined hand all the way to her room. It rested in her left one, like a curled spider, insensible and insensate. Spring would bring more battle, more services in demand. More payments… truly, was it such a sin for her to spend of senses fully, to use her limbs, before they were all taken away?

The Bondwitch seemed to have no answers. Thank the Heavens, no further questions as well.

Not until they were back in Alba’s own quarters, of course. The Bondwitch, usually by this time already collapsed on her crumb-covered couch, lingered around her, like an obtrusive thought.

“A than-you,” she mused at last.

“Of a sort,” Alba replied. “And one not to be used.” The last thing she needed was for the Bondwitch to wake up half the Castle with kisses. For some reason, the image bothered her more than it should…

“Not to be used?” Alba was not looking at her, but she could picture her tilting her head.

“Of course not! That is to be used only in, ah, special occasions…” Holy Virgin, tonight Alba could forego lighting up the hearth: she would be kept warm by her own cheeks!

“Special. I understand.” A pause. “I really do.”

“Never doubted,” Alba replied shaking her head.

“Does this thank-you thing have a name?”

“A…” Platinum-white lips filled her vision. Candlelight, and relief from… from being still alive. Still warm. “A kiss.”

“I understand.”

And truly, it could have been the end of that conversation. A fruitless, sensible end.

Alba felt smooth warm hands take her head. Turn it. Tilt her vision up towards green eyes and platinum-white lips – and those lips disappeared and then they were pressed against her own it was only after a very long time – beyond hope and decency – when Alba remembered to breathe again. The Bondwitch had not closed her eyes. In later times, Alba would remember the most those emerald eyes. Emerald, and the tiny golden specks in them, lost in their depths. Was she one of them?  
Air rushed in.

The Bondwitch detached herself.

“A thank-you,” she declared.

Alba stood motionless. The Bondwitch let her go, and when Alba did not crumble into dust, she walked to her couch, and laid on it, and pushed her hand deep into a large bag of cookies, and only then Alba blinked, and shook her head, and turned away.

She had to pinch her cheeks in. For some reasons she felt a lot like smiling, and smiling drunkenly like a dumbstruck farmgirl was beneath a princess.

She shook her head, and whispered _you will be the death of me_, and spring would pass, and summer would grow old, before Alba knew how true her words were, and how untrue.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked this piece. It is a stand-alone for now, as I do not have much time to work on this original story, though I have a ton of notes and short episodes to polish about these two. In the meantime, if you want to leave a comment and let me know what you thought about it and what you think of the characters, I would be most obliged. I am curious about their potential for my audience and need your opinion on this.
> 
> Thank you and I will see you again (for original stories or not).


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